Hanging by a Thread: Natural Metallic Mordant Processes in Traditional Indonesian Textiles 1 ANTHONY B. CUNNINGHAM * ,2,3 , I. MADE MADUARTA 4 ,JEAN HOWE 5 , W. INGRAM 5 , AND STEVEN JANSEN 6 2 School of Plant Biology, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia 3 People and Plants International, Fremantle, Australia 4 Yayasan Pecinta Budaya Bebali, Bali, Indonesia 5 Threads of Life: Indonesian Textile Arts Center, Bali, Indonesia 6 Institute for Systematic Botany and Ecology, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany *Corresponding author; e-mail: tonyc05@bigpond.net.au Hanging by a Thread: Natural Metallic Mordant Processes in Traditional Indonesian Textiles. Despite the availability of synthetic dyes and the impact of significant religious, social, and economic change, textile weavers in more remote areas of Indonesia continue naturally dyed textile production as a living tradition. This paper documents mordant plants in Sulawesi, West Kalimantan, and nine islands in eastern Indonesia (Bali, Flores, Java, Lembata, Nusa Penida, Rai Jua, Savu, Sumba, and West Timor). These plants, such as various Symplocos species, are hyperaccumulators of aluminum compounds. Other plants used as sources of alkaline ash, of saponifiable oils and fats and for ritual purposes in the dyeing process, are also recorded. Di Ambang Kepunahan: proses mordan dengan menggunakan logam dari tumbuhan dalam pembuatan kain tradisional di Indonesia. Ditengah maraknya pemakaian warna sintetis serta terjadinya perubahan dalam keyakinan, keadaan sosial dan ekonomi, penenun di beberapa daerah terpencil tetap memproduksi kain warna alam sebagai sebuah tradisi. Jurnal ini membahas tumbuhan mordant atau perekat warna serta tantangan yang dihadapi dalam pemakaiannya di daerah Sulawesi dan Kalimantan serta di sembilan pulau lain di Indonesia mencakup Bali, Flores, Jawa, Lembata, Nusa Penida, Rai Jua, Sabu, Sumba dan Timor Barat. Tumbuhan mordant yang dibahas, seperti Symplocos, menganndung zat aluminum yang tinggi. Tumbuhan lain yang dipergunakan sebagai sumber abu alkali, minyak dan lemak saponifiable, serta yang dipakai dalam ritual proses mordant juga dibahas dalam artikel ini. Key Words: Natural mordants, oil seeds, Symplocos. Introduction Mordants (from the old French mordre [“to bite”]) are metallic compounds forming stable chemical bonds needed to fix dye to textile threads. Mordants are crucial to the dye process, ensuring that textiles are colorfast. Centuries before the development of modern analytical chemistry, textiles dyers in South and Southeast Asia were selecting plants that hyperaccumulate aluminum (Al) for use as mordants (Mohanty et al. 1987; this study). Al hyperaccumulation is now known to be a primitive trait limited to particular plant taxa (Jansen et al. 2002, 2004). In Europe, Al–accumulating club mosses were used as mordants (Ferreira et al. 2004), but plant use for mordants is not universal. In Peru, for example, no plants are recorded for use as mordants; instead, alum from natural deposits is 1 Received 20 October 2009; accepted 15 May 2011; published online ___________. Economic Botany, XX(X), 2011, pp. 1–19. © 2011, by The New York Botanical Garden Press, Bronx, NY 10458-5126 U.S.A.